Lyrics for Learning to Live as interpreted by rainstorm

Learning to Live Lyrics
There was no time for pain
No energy for anger
The sightlessness of hatred
slips away
Walking through winter streets
alone
He stops and takes a breath
With confidence and self -
control

I look at the world and see no
understanding
I'm waiting to find some sense
of strength
I'm begging you from the
bottom of my heart to show
me understanding

I need to live life
Like some people never will
So find me kindness
Find me beauty
Find me truth
When temptation brings me to
my knees
And I lay here drained of
strength
Show me kindness
Show me beauty
Show me truth

The way your heart sounds
makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure
the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
makes all the difference
In learning to live
Here before me is my soul
I'm learning to live
I won't give up
Till I've no more to give

Listening to the city
Whispering its violence
I set out watching from above
The 90s bring new questions
New solutions to be found
I fell in love to be let down

Once again we dance in the
crowd
At times a step away
From a common fear that's all
spread out
It won't listen to what you say
Once you're touched you stand
alone
To face the bitter fight
Once I reached for love
And now I reach for life

Another chance to lift my life
Free the sensation in my heart
To ride the wings of dreams
into changing horizons
It brings inner peace within my
mind,
As I'm lifted from where I've
spilt my life
I hear an innocent voice
I hear kindness, beauty and
truth

The way your heart sounds
makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure
the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
makes all the difference
In learning to live
Spread before you is your soul
So forever hold the dreams
within our hearts
Through nature's inflexible
grace
I'm learning to live

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  • 26 Comments
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bitterpixie
06-20-2002

Rated +2 
im in a rush trying to find a verse here and there that i like to write down. but this whole song is just fantastic. i guess ill have to save it and come back to it. wow. how pretty.

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staggarelli
08-24-2002

Rated 0 
john Myung lyrics if my memory serves me correctly, great bassest. anywho, im assuming that this song deals with how u thought u had somethign with someone but then it was taken away and now ur left trying or learning to live.

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Vozzy
08-25-2002

Rated 0 
These lyrics are about the threat of AIDS, which was on everyone's mind in the late 80s - early 90s...for example:

"The 90s bring new questions / New solutions to be found / I fell in love to be let down

Once again we dance in the crowd / At times a step away / From a common fear that's all spread out / It won't listen to what you say / Once you're touched you stand alone / To face the bitter fight / Once I reached for love / And now I reach for life"

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Thunderbolt
09-25-2004

Rated 0 
Vozzy is correct.

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riffgenius
05-20-2005

Rated +1 
yeah vozzys right
wonderful lyrics by myung . one of the best if not the best DT songs

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mando91
07-15-2005

Rated 0 
Great!
Good that they are a bit political to...I feel by some accident that Dream Theater isn't political enough, to americanized but you can't have everything really...they write really good lyrics (And are inteliggent people) and really good lyrics if you compare to much modern music...
Great song! It's so awsome, in the once in a livetime DVD when they playing this song you can hear the crowd sing along at the end so unbelivebel loud!!!1 Ahhh!

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mando91
07-15-2005

Rated 0 
But I doesn't have English as native tounge so I can't really say so much:D
But by reading the lyrics now I can see they are really great...

Yea! DREAM THEATER=AEG!!!!!=Hell yea...=I can't describe...and I am going to see them soon...this autumn (Sad that Myung isn't with the Dream om this tour :'*(

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Petary791
01-05-2006

Rated 0 
The AIDS thing is probably what the song was WRITTEN about, but I have a different interpretation. I feel that it's about just getting all the shit that's on your mind off of your mind. Learning to live means learning to live peacefully, tranquily, relaxed, and healthy (mentally, not neccessarily physically.) Kind of reminds me of the whole prying open your third eye thing.

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DragonWing85
10-22-2006

Rated 0 
Am I the only one who noticed the Wait for Sleep melodies?

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1 Reply
DarkMilly
11-30-2006

Rated 0 
i love the fact that the at the end of the song it plays the wait for sleep melody, maybe bring another meaning into the song? linking the two together? (the girl is the one 'learning to live' and the guy she is talking about in wait for sleep might of died of aids... just my guess. one thing i really love about DT is that so many of their songs link, it's awsome!)

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headbang666
01-16-2007

Rated 0 
My first Dream Theater song. Brings back great memories C=

Wait For Sleep is about a friend of Kevin Moore who had trouble finding something to believe in. It explains better here:

http://www.dtfaq.com/question/77

I also read somewhere that they often put familiar riffs in different songs to show a continuation. Or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was. But it could be possible.

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1 Reply
Fade 2 black
02-12-2007

Rated 0 
headbang666, I believe you are referring to the Octavarium album when talking about continuation. If you listen to the Octavarium album's tracks, several songs have the riff from Medicate, the second part of the final track, in them somewhere.
Also, every track on that album ties into the next, except I Walk Beside You and Sacrificed Sons.

Although, yeah, they do seem to do it elsewhere. Such as The Glass Prison, This Dying Soul and The Root Of All Evil, Disappear and Misunderstood, and this and Wait For Sleep.

A very thoughtful band; they make every line count, somehow tie everything together, and still manage to apply some amazing riffs, and slam hidden messages, strong meanings and stuff into every song.

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CRIMSONGLORY
03-19-2007

Rated 0 
This song for me makes me think of how the speaker feels that he could be together with his Loved one if her heart would have believed in him.
He speaks about that particular connection that didnt happen in love and how he is learning to live with all of the pain and loneliness.....
"The way your heart sounds
makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure
the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
makes all the difference
In learning to live
Spread before you is your soul
So forever hold the dreams
within our hearts
Through nature's inflexible
grace
I'm learning to live "
(Just My take on it-Wonderful song and one of my all-time favs.)
\m/^_^\m/ DT ROCKS!

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CRIMSONGLORY
03-19-2007

Rated 0 
And when that particular connection is not there and when u love some1 so truely but if the partner in love don't will to endure the pain that life puts us through - in other words if we do not compromise or keep that flame of love burning even in our darkest of tribulations-it obviously makes a differece in learning to live in love

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CRIMSONGLORY
03-19-2007

Rated 0 
I need to live life
Like some people never will
So find me kindness
Find me beauty
Find me truth
When temptation brings me to
my knees
And I lay here drained of
strength
Show me kindness
Show me beauty
Show me truth
The speaker speaks of how he won't suicide just for a girl when many often think of doing that when they are dumped by their loved ones.
The speaker feels no kindness-beauty or truth in his loved one as she could not recognize true love....The Love that would have shown Kindness. Beauty and truth!

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CRIMSONGLORY
03-19-2007

Rated 0 
Why she couldnt understand him..when all he tried to show true love and a life of beauty-kindness and truth but gets in return a life of isolation-desolation and so the lyrics....
I look at the world and see no
understanding
I'm waiting to find some sense
of strength
I'm begging you from the
bottom of my heart to show
me understanding
(Sorry guy's this is my 4th continous post in a row as when I delved into the lyrics i started discovering more and more hidden meanings and interpretations and just wanted to put all the deep thoughts i felt)

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O RLY?
03-22-2007

Rated 0 
The Glass Prison is one of the many songs in Portnoy's AA saga.

"And when that particular connection is not there and when u love some1 so truely but if the partner in love don't will to endure the pain that life puts us through - in other words if we do not compromise or keep that flame of love burning even in our darkest of tribulations-it obviously makes a differece in learning to live in love"

That may be your interpretation, but it's not the intended one, Vozzy is right.

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1 Reply
Sietsev
04-20-2007

Rated 0 
The Mirror and Lie also have instrumental connections, even The Mirror and Space-Dye vest,, but I don't think the second is of great importance..
I think learnig to live is about lost hope or something:
"I fell in love to be let down,"
And:
"I look at the world and see no understanding"
The 'I person' in this lines is looking for someone who understands his pain and fears, but no one does.

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BeerKing
01-26-2008

Rated 0 
If I'm correct, I've read that there's no lyrical connection between LTL and WFS, they just figured out that the melody would fit in.

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mahapan
06-22-2008

Rated 0 
amazing lyrics here

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mahapan
06-22-2008

Rated 0 
anyone else agree that the interlude at 5:30 and the whooaaa at 7:00 KICK ASS?

MUSICAL BLISS

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mahapan
06-22-2008

Rated 0 
what surprises me though is why this isnt one of their more popular songs

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guardiandevil305
03-16-2009

Rated +1 
The opening lines from the song are a direct lift from the book Atlas Shrugged by noted author Ayn Rand. The first phrase, "There was no time for pain, no energy for anger. Sightlessness of hatred slips away." is paraphrase from the exact quote "He had no time for pain, no energy for anger. Within a few weeks, it was over; the blinding stabs of hatred ceased and did not return." (p.211 of the Centennial Edition) The next phrase in the song, "Walking through winter streets alone, he stops and takes a breath, with confidence and self-control," is similar to the next few sentences in the book.


That entire thing is lifted from wikipedia. But I read that book and it is AWESOME!

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1 Reply
Aniland
05-22-2009

Rated 0 
AIDs, and living with it. How each person who contracts the AIDs virus deals with it in a different way, and how some aren't able to cope as well as others. This song seems to be a full force look into the life of a man who has just learned of his illness, and how his entire world has been shaped differently because of it. How he sees differently, hears differently, thinks differently. It seems like this man didn't even receive AIDs from a loving partner, and that loneliness had gotten the better of him, particularly in "Once I reached for love / Now I reach for life". It's about hope in those who have the awful condition, and how hopelessness doesn't have to be the case. This is one of the four John Myung songs, and it's definitely the best in my opinion.

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Travatar
06-09-2009

Rated 0 
The AIDS interpretation makes perfect sense. But like many of Dream Theater's songs, it works on many levels.
A theory:
Perhaps the tie in with "Wait for Sleep?" has to do with a breakup between the woman and her lover (I would assume a boyfriend.) Perhaps one of them realizes they have AIDs and feel the need to break things off. Perhaps the woman in Wait for Sleep finds out that the man has AIDs, and overcome by fear, and breaks things off. Perhaps the woman is ALSO the subject of Learning to Live (unlike Wait for Sleep, LTL is gender-neutral.) Or maybe they have nothing to do with each other. Beats the heck out of me, but speculating on song meanings makes traffic so much more bearable.

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